(NewsNation) — As artificial intelligence becomes more prevalent, many traditional entry-level jobs for recent college graduates are changing or being eliminated altogether.

A new report from SignalFire, a data-driven venture capital firm, suggests AI is responsible for a 25% decrease in the hiring of recent graduates by major tech companies, including Meta, Microsoft and Google.

Asher Bantock, SignalFire’s head of research, told TechCrunch the decline equated to thousands of fewer hires in 2024 than in 2023.

The report highlighted that hiring of recent graduates by big tech companies fell 25% last year and is down 50% compared to pre-pandemic levels.

Unemployment rate higher for new graduates

Oxford Economics determined that graduates — those aged 22 to 27 with a bachelor’s degree or higher — have contributed 12% to the 85% rise in the national unemployment rate since mid-2023.

Those graduates make up only 5% of the total workforce, meaning they’re contributing more than double their share to unemployment statistics.

Recent graduates also have a nearly 6% unemployment rate, beating out the national unemployment rate of 4.2%.

Experts believe AI is a major reason many are struggling to find jobs.

Dario Amodei, CEO of AI startup Anthropic, warned Axios that AI could eliminate up to half of all entry-level white-collar jobs, potentially increasing unemployment by 10% to 20%.

Aneesh Raman, LinkedIn’s chief economic opportunity officer, suggested in a New York Times op-ed that the “bottom rung” of the career ladder is breaking.

“In tech, advanced coding tools are creeping into the tasks of writing simple code and debugging — the ways junior developers gain experience,” he wrote. “In law firms, junior paralegals and first-year associates who once cut their teeth on document review are handing weeks of work over to AI tools to complete in a matter of hours.”

Where has AI replaced entry-level jobs?

AI-powered chatbots and virtual assistants are taking over customer service and support roles. Data entry and processing roles are being automated. Even retail inventory management and fast-food drive-thrus at fast-food chains like Taco Bell and Wendy’s are now using AI-powered voice assistants.

Scott Baradell, spokesperson for media company LaborStrong, compared this shift to the automation wave that hit blue-collar manufacturing jobs in the 1980s.

“You could think of it as the white-collar version of what happened to many blue-collar manufacturing jobs back in, starting in the ’80s and onward with robots and things taking over those kinds of assembly-line jobs that people had long counted on,” he said. “Then, many people thought, ‘Oh, they won’t be able to take all these jobs and automate them’ — and they did.”

Unions move to block job-killing AI

Despite these changes, some jobs likely remain beyond AI’s reach and are in high demand. Airline pilots and air traffic control operators, for example, require human judgment and experience that AI can’t replicate.

To protect their roles, some workers are turning to unions. Last year, the Writers Guild of America and SAG-AFTRA demanded protections to ensure AI wouldn’t replace their jobs, and dockworkers on the East and Gulf coasts called for a complete ban on port automation.

Experts have advised that if recent graduates can’t find an entry-level position in their desired field, they should consider starting in related roles to build skills and transition once they have more experience.